rub my nose in it.'
'When was this?'
'Like you say, at least twenty years ago.'
'I mean specifically.'
'Shit, Cliff, it's a long time ago.'
'I'm talking about 1983.'
She thought, then shook her head. 'No, must've been a year or so later. I was in Enzed for most of eighty- three- avoiding a couple of warrants. I put in a manager here.'
'You didn't know her brother killed a doctor in Darlinghurst?'
'I might've heard something about it when I got back, but I didn't pay it much attention. There was a lot going on thereabouts, what with the AIDS thing hitting and all that.'
'When you say she'd cleaned up her act, what d'you mean exactly, Rube?'
'Jesus, you're really into exactly and specifically and precisely, aren't you?'
''fraid so, it's like that.'
'I mean that she must've gone to some detox place and got herself cleaned out. Takes time and money, that. Plus, she'd had her teeth fixed, boob job, the works.'
'Where is she now?'
'Haven't a clue. She took off somewhere with her pimp. Funny, you saying her brother killed a doctor. Pixie's bloke was supposed to be a doctor. Probably an abortionist.'
'What was his name?'
'Can't remember. Adolf, Boris-something German like.'
9
I pressed Ruby for more information about Pixie Padrone but she'd run dry. According to her, Pixie vanished from the Sydney sex scene 'sometime around when Australia won the America's Cup', which was as close as she could pin it down.
'That was a boom time, if you like,' she said. 'I wish they'd bung on stuff like that permanently.'
She said she'd ask around about Pixie, but she didn't hold out much hope.
'She must have had parents, family of some kind apart from her brother?'
'If Pixie had parents,' Ruby said, 'they probably kicked her out before she got her first period. She was a grade one troublemaking bitch.'
In a perverse way, that was a ringing endorsement from Ruby, who has a low opinion of humankind in general, and women in particular. For Pixie to be worthy of such an assessment, she had to be a person of some force. I thanked Ruby and promised to introduce her after I'd told her about Lily.
'I need someone to write my autobiography, Cliff,' Ruby said. 'Journalists do that sort of thing, don't they?'
'They do. Not sure Lily would. She's more on the financial side.'
'Shit, you think I'm not financial? I get all sorts of tips from the market high-flyers and do bloody well out of them. Your girlfriend'd be surprised about the financial stuff that goes on here, and the money side of this business.'
'I'll talk to her,' I said. 'What about dinner at the Bourbon and Beefsteak? On me?'
'You're on. I could go a chateaubriand. Make it a night early in the week.'
My day's work had given me plenty to think about- connections that could be important, possible survivors to seek out, questions needing answers. I drove to my office in Newtown to do the thinking and the computer work if that seemed likely to be helpful. The office is two floors up in a building at the non-trendy end of King Street. The creeping gentrification that has transformed Newtown seems to have stalled at the moment, but no doubt it'll get on the move again, like the cane toad up north.
Before going to the office I collected my mail from the post office box and, as usual, was able to dispose of a good deal of it in a street bin. The bills were accumulating as they do, but there was a decent cheque as well to help things along. Bpay had taken some of the nuisance and expense out of paying accounts, but the equation was just the same. What was coming in versus what was going out. So far this year, with about a third of it gone, I was holding my own. That was good going, because summer and spring are bad for business generally. Things pick up in winter when people tend to have darker, more suspicious thoughts.
The office is conducive to thinking-spartan, functional, with the coffee maker as the only comfort item since the bar fridge went on the blink. I booted up the computer and wrote down as many of the words spoken by all parties in the interviews as I could remember. This is a new technique for me, as advised by Lily. She says that exact, direct quotes can sometimes get you to the heart of the matter. Hasn't happened yet, but it might. For Lil, the words on the screen are totally real. Me, I need to print things out to get the feel.
I spent the rest of the afternoon going over what I'd written together with Frank's extensive notes, trying to piece things together. If Dr Karl Lubeck was associated with Rafael Padrone's sister, then the removal of his medical file was unlikely to be an accident-incidental to the removal of incriminating material-as Roma Brown had thought. If Pixie Padrone had pulled herself out of addiction through expensive detoxification treatment and had had some bodywork, again expensive, that suggested she'd got her hands on some money. Maybe some of her brother's twenty thousand?
But what light, if any, did this throw on the possibility of Gregory Heysen being innocent of conspiracy to murder Peter Bellamy? My one thought to date was that Heysen could have been framed as a consequence of something going wrong in the clandestine makeover racket. Not easy to investigate, let alone prove. But there was another connection, confirming Ruby's linking of Pixie with someone with a German name said to be a doctor and, therefore, possibly Lubeck-plastic surgery.
It felt like progress, but of a very cobwebbed kind, not something to report back to Frank on. I checked on the
America's Cup victory-1983-with Hawkie calling any employer who'd docked a worker's wages for taking a day off 'a bum'. Hawke and Bond, two fallen heroes. Give or take a bit, that date fitted in with Karl Lubeck, having dropped Roma Brown, operating as Pixie Padrone's pimp. And it firmed up the likelihood that she had got her hands on a useful sum of money for her rehabilitation.
Not wanting to get distracted from the Heysen matter, I'd left checking my email until I got home. The rain had stopped but I wasn't in the mood to deal with the fallen branch, and aluminium ladders don't rust. I made myself a gin and tonic and hit the keys. There was a scattering of spam as usual-offers to lengthen my penis, harden it and make it more responsive. Delete, delete, delete, though the day may come.
My accountant wanted me to send in my quarterly tax stuff, and my annual dues for the Balmain Rugby League Club, my one such membership, were overdue. The only message of interest was from my daughter, Megan, who was on a cruise ship in the Pacific providing nightly entertainment in the form of a two-hander song and dance show. Her partner was one Daniel Wilson-Fox and they were apparently an item:
Hi Cliff. Danny and I are wowing 'em here on the boat.
It's a good gig and we're saving money. Did you know that old women dye their hair blue because it looks yellow to them because their eyesight is shot? Thought that might be helpful professionally.
Love
Megan
I couldn't see how, but it was nice to get the message. I sent a quick reply and felt glad that Megan had life by the scruff. I'd been lucky; all her major troubles happened before I even knew she existed. And ever since I'd helped her out of the aftermath of them we'd got on well. That returned me to thoughts of William Heysen, who may or may not have been Frank Parker's son, and who I was supposed to find. Hadn't put in any time on that as yet.
I went up to the Toxteth Hotel for a meal, a few drinks and a couple of games of pool. I teamed up with Daphne Rowley, a regular, and we held the table for a while against a succession of young bloods. Always a good feeling.
